Defender Rio Ferdinand is still a month away from returning to action, according to Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
The England captain has spent the last two months recovering from the knee
ligament injury which ruled him out of the World Cup.

Ferguson revealed on July 25 that the 31-year-old would not be back in action
for six weeks, ruling him out of the start of the new Premier League
season and making him a major doubt for England's opening two Euro 2012
qualifiers against Bulgaria on September 3 and Switzerland four days later.

That estimation now looks to have been slightly optimistic.

"Rio is nowhere near, no. He's doing little bits of jogging and things like that but I think he's a month
away," Ferguson told the Sunday People.

"We always anticipated it would take time. It's a knee ligament and, although
it wasn't what you'd call a serious one, it was a hard one. You have to take
time with knee ligaments."

The Scot added: "Rio has had a bad 12 months and we hope it gets better for
him. You hope the break over the summer with missing the World Cup will help him.

"The back injury seemed to sort itself out as the season went on, then he had
the groin injury. He's had a succession of these things and you don't want to see that when a
player is in his 30s."